2023 NCAA Div 1 Indoor Championships: Ofili, Chukwuma, Alfred drawn in same 60m semifinal heat
Ashe, Akintola, Onwuzurike also get lane draws
The Nigerian duo of Favour Ofili and Rosemary Chukwuma will battle Julien Alfred, the fastest girl in the NCAA and second fastest in the world so far this year as well as five others for the two automatic tickets on offer in the first semifinal of the 60m event on Friday.
Ofili is drawn to run from lane one and Chukwuma will run from lane two while Alfred, the University of Texas student will run from lane six.
Alfred is the only athlete in the two semifinal heats who has broken 7 seconds (6.99) in the event so far this year with Chukwuma the second fastest with the 7.09 lifetime best she ran last month while Ofili, who ran a new 7.15 personal best in the 60m at the end of last month is the third fastest in the first semifinal heat.
Alfred is the favourite to pick the first of two automatic tickets with Chukwuma is expected to battle Kiara Grant for the second while Ofili should scale through as one of the four fastest ‘losers’ that will make the eight-lane final.
The third Nigerian in the event, Ezinne Abba will run in the second semifinal.
For the men, Favour Ashe will run from lane three in the first semifinal where he is one of the two favourites to pick the two automatic tickets to the final alongside Florida’s Ismael Kone who is the pre-championships’ fastest in the group (6.51) ahead of the 20 year old Nigerian (6.52).
The other two in the race, Godson Oghenebrume and Alaba Akintola have been drawn in the first and second lanes in the second semifinal heat which has the pre-championships and NCAA fastest man this year, Terrence Jones of Texas Tech (6.48).
In the women’s 200m where the top 8 fastest times advance to a 2 section Final, Ofili, Chukwuma and Abba have been kept apart in the four semifinal heats.
Ofili, the Nigerian record holder in the event, indoors and outdoor will run first and it will in the second semifinal with Abba following in the third while Chukwuma will run in the fourth semifinal heat alongside the fastest girl in the world this year over the distance (22.26), Alfred.
For the men, the duo of Akintola and Udodi Onwuzurike will run in the second and fourth semifinal heats respectively where they will be hoping to be among the first eight fastest time to run in the first section final.
